“Will…”
“We have time.”
“I hope so. You must be tired yourself.”
“I slept on my flight. I didn’t have a deck of cards to distract me, and I had the comforts of a private jet.”
She gave a mock protest. “I was in coach with a toddler kicking the back of my seat, and you-”
He laughed softly. “Next time perhaps you’ll think twice before you slip out on me.”
Chapter 24
Boston, Massachusetts
10 p.m., EDT
August 26
Fiona had left her full-size, classic harp in the corner of the Garrison house first-floor drawing room, in front of Keira’s sketch of the Christmas windowbox in Dublin. Bob plucked a string. Fiona had shown him how, but it made a twangy sound, nothing like the rich, full sound she could produce. He’d walked up from Charles Street. The joint task force was meeting at BPD headquarters in a little while. He’d be on his way there soon. They were making progress, but they still didn’t have Abigail or her captors.
Yarborough materialized in the foyer door. “Lieutenant?”
Bob resisted biting the guy’s head off and turned from the harp. “Yeah, what’s up?” Even he could hear the fatigue in his voice.
Yarborough, who’d been glum all night, was almost perky. “We have an ID on the dead guy, a South Boston thug named Walter Bassette. Lucas and a couple precinct detectives are on their way over to his apartment.”
Bassette. Bob liked having a name. It was something solid. “Good work, Yarborough.”
“I didn’t have anything to do with it. I’m just telling you.”
Credit where credit was due. He was ambitious, but he was also fair.
“We’re checking if Bassette was in Ireland recently, called there, met someone from there. Having a decent lead…” Yarborough shrugged, not getting himself too excited. “It helps.”
“The bombs weren’t sophisticated, but these bastards had to get the materials from somewhere and put them together somewhere.” Bob looked at Keira’s sketch of the Dublin windowbox. “Someone had to hire Murphy, the guy in Ireland. If it was Bassette-” He broke off with a sigh and shifted back to Yarborough. “Who has Abigail now? What was Bassette doing in that alley?”
Yarborough rubbed the side of his nose and didn’t answer. Bob recognized the tactic for what it was. The younger detective was giving him time.
Bob felt his stomach go south on him. “Bassette knew Fiona saw him. He’d talked to her. He came there to kill her.”
“Don’t think about it. He’s out of the picture, and she’s under protection. No one’s getting near her.” Yarborough walked into the empty room. “Abigail’s spent a fair amount of time here this summer. I think she’s trying this place on for size to see if it might work for her and Owen. Turn it back into a residence. She comes over and does paperwork while he does his thing. Sometimes Fiona and her friends are here practicing.”
“Tom?”
He got a little red. “I don’t know. Maybe there’s something here we missed.”
“I’ll check it out,” Bob said.
Bob saw past Yarborough’s arrogance to his worry, but it wasn’t a place either wanted to go. Bob liked being emotionally repressed and figured Yarborough was a fellow traveler on that score.
“I’ll see you back at headquarters,” Yarborough said.
“You getting any sleep?”
“There’s time for that.” He gave Bob a quick grin. “Us younger guys can go a few days without sleep.”
“Go to hell, Yarborough.”
“Do you need a ride? I can stay-”
“Nah. I’m all set. Go.”
After Yarborough left, Bob paced, his footsteps echoing on the hardwood floor. Teams had gone through Abigail’s desk at BPD headquarters, her computer, her car, the remnants of her apartment. They’d only swept the Garrison house for bombs. They hadn’t searched it.
He walked up the stairs to the second-floor offices of the Dorothy Garrison Foundation. It focused on gardens and oceans-the things Owen’s sister had loved most. Bob couldn’t imagine losing one of his daughters at any age, but at fourteen?
He looked for any files or work Abigail might have left there and, tucked on a bookcase, found a laptop labeled with her name.
Yarborough wasn’t easy, but he had good instincts. Bob took another flight of stairs up to Keira’s apartment. She and Abigail were just getting to know each other. Simon had given her and Owen an early wedding present of one of Keira’s paintings, which Abigail loved. Bob figured Owen didn’t care one way or the other, provided she was happy.
And now they didn’t know if she was even alive.
He forced back the thought before it could take hold and noticed Keira’s apartment door was ajar.
Simon stood in the doorway with his Glock in one hand. “Hey, Bob.”
“I’m glad I didn’t have to shoot you,” Bob said wryly, then sighed. “Too damn much time on a desk. I’m getting stale. Then again, I’m brains not brawn these days. You here alone?”
A twitch of his mouth. “I think so.”
Meaning Simon had shaken his detail. “Bet your FBI friends aren’t happy about that.” Bob stepped past him into the little apartment. “A big target on your back-don’t stand too close, okay?”
“I’m not staying.”
“Anything from Owen?”
Simon holstered the Glock. “They’ve expanded the search for Norman’s plane. Owen’s focused on his mission.”
Simon nodded to the laptop under Bob’s arm. “What’s that all about?”
Bob shrugged. “Probably wedding dress searches.”
“Let’s have a look.”
They pushed aside books on fairies and folklore and a box of art supplies and opened up the laptop on Keira’s table. Bob had taken a liking to Simon. His wanderlust niece wouldn’t have trouble coping with an extended stay under the Irish guards. She’d have trouble being without him.
Even Bob, with his limited computer skills, had no trouble spotting a desktop file labeled “Rush hotels” on Abigail’s laptop. He clicked on it, and up popped her notes, links and downloaded descriptions of each of the Rushes’ fifteen boutique hotels.
Simon’s eyes narrowed. “Looks as if Abigail was onto Lizzie Rush.”
Bob kept clicking. Nothing was password-protected. He found a copy of an old Boston Globe article about the death of Harlan Rush’s Irish wife, Shauna Morrigan, in Dublin when their daughter was a baby.
Simon leaned over and scanned the article. “John March flew to Dublin and consulted with Irish investigators about what happened. There’s a quote from him about what a tragedy her death was.”
“Ireland’s a long way to go for an Irish citizen who tripped and fell, even if she was married to a rich Bostonian.” Bob clicked on another file and gave a low whistle. It was another Globe article. “Simon, look at this.”
He was all FBI agent as he read the article over Bob’s shoulder about the deaths of Shauna Morrigan’s parents and brother in a car accident on their way to identify her body. Apparently they were so distraught, they missed a curve and drove off a cliff.
“Another ‘tragedy,’” Simon said under his breath.
Bob knew he had to take the laptop in. “Come with me to BPD headquarters,” he told Simon. “We’ll open up the files. I know this bastard Estabrook wants you dead, but you’re hard to kill. I figure I’m safe with you.”
“No,” Simon said. “You go on.”
Bob saw what Simon had in mind and shook his head. “You shouldn’t do this.”
“I haven’t said what I’m going to do.”
“Going solo will get you killed, Simon.”
But Bob didn’t argue with him and instead walked back down the two flights of stairs and out into the summer night. He looked up at the dark sky and thought of Abigail last summer, tearing up the journals she’d kept for the seven long years after her husband’s death, burning them in the backyard charcoal grill.